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<title>say something by GallifreyisBurning</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25348672">say something</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/GallifreyisBurning/pseuds/GallifreyisBurning'>GallifreyisBurning</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Hogwarts Eighth Year, M/M, Non-Explicit Sex, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Smoking, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 07:01:01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,190</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25348672</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/GallifreyisBurning/pseuds/GallifreyisBurning</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“The world I was raised for is dead,” he stated, his voice flat. “And good riddance, I suppose, but there’s no place for me here. I was molded to ascend in a society that burned. It might have been better if I had burned with it.”</p><p>Harry let the silence linger until he was sure that Malfoy was done before saying, “That’s rather a dramatic take on it.”</p><p>“Yes, well,” Malfoy sighed, “I’ve had a lot of practice.”</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>208</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>say something</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They came back for another year, almost all of them. They didn’t have much choice in the matter; the classes in their seventh year had been all but useless in NEWT preparation, for those of them who had even been there. It should have been a reprieve, maybe, but it wasn’t.</p><p>They came back changed, all of them. It was impossible to ignore. It was Lavender Brown, who had an edge like a knife even without the scars across her face, nearly unrecognizable from the bubbly, smiling girl who had once called Ron “Won-Won.” It was Dean Thomas, who always needed to have his back to a wall, and who gripped his wand as though someone was about to take it from him at any moment. It was Hermione, whose dedication to her education had reached an almost manic level, studying as though she could make everything okay again through knowledge and force of will. It was the way Ron stuck to her side like glue, and the way Pansy Parkinson tried to disappear into the shadows, and the lost look that never seemed to leave Malfoy’s face. It was the hollowness at Harry’s very core; the gaping hole that told him there was no purpose left for him—that he shouldn’t have lived this long.</p><p>They had come back to school, but they weren’t children anymore. They were veterans; the shell shocked survivors of a war they could never have hoped to avoid, that they had never asked to join.</p><p>The castle was burned and broken, with whole sections of walls missing and corridors filled with rubble, but they opened it anyway, because no one really knew what else to do. Gryffindor and Ravenclaw towers were uninhabitable, so the living arrangements had to be changed, and then McGonagall informed the school governors that the Sorting Hat had rebelled and refused to sort the first years at all, and so the students all ended up living by years rather than houses. </p><p>The so-called Eighth Years ended up in a new dorm all their own that might once have been classrooms; it was oddly arranged and the common room was small with strange, narrow windows high up in the walls but they all had their own tiny bedrooms somehow so that was something. Not that they necessarily used them; Ron had levitated his mattress into Harry’s room on the first night and they had banished Harry’s bed frame, laying the mattresses side by side on the floor instead, and Harry, Ron, and Hermione slept curled together, listening to each other’s breathing to reassure themselves that they had all survived.</p><p>Mostly. But Harry tried not to think about that.</p><p>–-</p><p>Harry wasn’t surprised when he sought solitude on the Astronomy Tower one evening only to find Draco Malfoy already there, sitting on one of the wide window ledges and staring out at the grounds. There was a lit cigarette between his fingers (a Muggle one, Harry thought) but he wasn’t smoking it; it simply dangled as though he’d forgotten it was there.</p><p>Harry didn’t have the energy to find somewhere else to go to avoid the world, so he allowed himself to slide down the back wall until he was sitting on the floor. He didn’t greet Malfoy. The former Slytherin hadn’t bothered him at all this year—hadn’t interacted with much of anyone, really—so it didn’t seem to matter that he was there. His back had tensed for a moment when Harry had entered, so he knew that the other boy had noticed his presence, but neither of them seemed inclined to acknowledge one another. They just sat, silent.</p><p>After what could have been minutes or hours (time didn’t seem to matter much, these days) Malfoy spoke, without ever turning his head. He might as well have been talking to the wind. “Mother tells me I should thank you, you know. For saving my life.” He went to bring his cigarette to his mouth, only seeming to realize at the last moment that it had burned down to the stub long ago. “But I rather wish you hadn’t, you see.”</p><p>Harry didn’t respond. Something clenched in his chest, but it felt distant—the echo of an emotion. He waited to see if the other boy would go on.</p><p>“It’s going to be the start of a new era,” Malfoy eventually continued, as though this made perfect sense as a follow up to his assertion that he wished he were dead. “You and yours will raze our world to the ground and build it anew. It will likely be rather better than it was, I should think.” </p><p>He pulled an open pack of cigarettes from a pocket and freed a new one, lighting it with his wand tip. After one deep inhale, however, he showed no further interest in smoking it, instead watching the slowly growing column of ash consuming the crisp brown paper. “The world I was raised for is dead,” he stated, his voice flat. “And good riddance, I suppose, but there’s no place for me here. I was molded to ascend in a society that burned. It might have been better if I had burned with it.”</p><p>Harry let the silence linger until he was sure that Malfoy was done before saying, “That’s rather a dramatic take on it.”</p><p>“Yes, well,” Malfoy sighed, “I’ve had a lot of practice.”</p><p>Harry let out a surprised snort. Then, without really making a decision to, he responded. “I was supposed to be a sacrifice. I was always supposed to die for the cause. I think part of me knew it even before it was spelled out for me. I don’t really know what to do with myself now. I didn’t really plan this far.”</p><p>–-</p><p>When they finally, inevitably, crashed together, Harry found that it was nothing like kissing Ginny. It was nothing like <em>kissing.</em> It was teeth on lips and bruising grips and nails digging into skin. It was the kinetic energy of seven years on opposite sides with no respite and no way out, culminating in a clash of body on body. Eventually, inevitably, it escalated, and it was cries that could have been pleasure or pain and stripes of come on skin and salty, tear-stained faces. It was a desperate need to feel something, anything; to prove that they were still alive. And it kept happening, and happening, and happening. </p><p>The first time Harry fucked Malfoy, the blond sobbed like he was breaking apart, and when Harry tried to stop, he grasped him with his full strength and gasped “don’t you fucking dare” through his tears. </p><p>“I’m hurting you,” Harry protested.</p><p>“I want you to,” Malfoy gritted out, and then he pulled Harry down into a kiss so hard it drew blood and Harry didn’t stop again. </p><p>Harry hated himself for it, for hurting and for being hurt, for craving it like a drug. But it lit a fire inside him and he <em>burned</em>. He <em>felt</em> with a passion he’d thought had left him when he’d died, and it didn’t matter <em>what</em> he felt, it only mattered that he did. </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I don't really know where this came from, to be honest. I don't usually write angst. I just sort of... had this thing in my head and it wanted to come out, so here it is.</p><p>“Say Something” is a song by A Great Big World and is one of the most poignant, angsty songs I have ever heard.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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